


need not to need

by laskaris



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Depression, Gen, POV Second Person, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4309602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laskaris/pseuds/laskaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>.There’s too much work to do, and never enough time to do it in.  </i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><i>You keep telling yourself that you need to be better.</i> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thancred, five years, and a slow unraveling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	need not to need

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably too harsh a take on what was going on inside Thancred's head during (and before) 2.0.

There’s too much work to do, and never enough time to do it in. You stare at the pile, at everything you’re trying to juggle, to get done, and know yourself inadequate. You’ve always held yourself to high standards, and you keep telling yourself that you need to be better. That you aren’t good enough (that you need to be perfect)-

_(you should be able to keep up, to do this, because someone has to. Master Louisoix has left too much of a hole, and you swallow your grief and push yourself on. Remember the warm smile down at a teenage thief, the tremendous chance he took on you and everything he did for you and you owe him more than you can ever give. The only thing you can do is try to live up to the potential he saw in you, and inevitably fail, because you’re still not good enough)_

You make time, pare away everything unnecessary. You don’t stop flirting, because you’ve made it useful and you’re already talking and there would be too many questions otherwise. You stop fooling around, though, stop hopping from bed to bed: you’re so busy that you don’t miss sex at all, soon enough. You sleep too much, so you cut out a bell here, there, minutes, shave it down to as little as possible until you’re only sleeping every other day, cut it still down, stretch it thin, until you’re not sleeping on any regular schedule at all and the taste of potions never leave your mouth and you’re only sleeping when the potions aren’t enough anymore and you inevitably pass out on the floor and have no other choice. 

Eating takes up too much time, too, so you cut that down when you realize that you still need more time in the day. You can’t stop eating, either, but you don’t have to eat that regularly or on a schedule. Or that much. You don’t eat until you’ve done enough work to justify it, and as the years pass, what you consider enough work changes, too, and maybe it helps that after a while you’ve forgotten all over again what it’s like to feel hungry. 

It’s fine. You’re fine. You’re fine. You hide the exhaustion with a little makeup and a bright smile, keep your voice light and no one knows anymore the shape of your body beneath your clothes. No one notices, and even you barely notice how much weight you’ve lost - you’ve always been slender, but the last time you were this thin, you were a half-starved street child. Maybe you should be worried, because no one else is, but you aren’t either, not even when your hands are shaking when you’re trying to research something in the dead of night or the dizziness creeps up again. You’re not stretching yourself too thin, you aren’t about to break: you’re doing what has to be done. There’s more important things to worry about, like helping fix this broken world, helping keep it together. You can rest when they’re done. 

You’re glad that everyone else is too busy to notice or worry about your welfare - there’s always more important things to do, more urgent things to care about, and you’d feel even more guilty if anyone was distracted with worrying about you, because you’re enough of a failure as is. 

_(you don’t ask for help. you don’t. you’ve always been self-sufficient, you need to be able to do this. the others have just as much work and they can do it, so why can’t you?)_

It’s easy enough to convince yourself that you’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine. You’re still fine, as long as you have something left to give, and you do. Just have faith. You can do this. You don’t think about what will happen once you don’t have anything left to give, you don’t. Because you’re fine, you can do this, your own voice in the back of your head a litany of you have to be better and you have to do this and why can’t you be good enough until all you can do is _havefaithhavefaithhavefaithhavefaith_ , keep telling yourself that you’re fine because you can’t fall apart, the Scions need you whole, you don’t have time and you have too much to do, and you can’t fall apart, you can’t, you can’t, and you keep telling yourself this because someday you’ll have to believe it. 

_(you’refineyou’refineyou’refineyou’refineyou’refine-)_


End file.
